The present invention relates to a thermal storage material container and a heat exchanger.
In the present specification and appended claims, the upper and lower sides of FIG. 1 will be referred to as “upper” and “lower,” respectively.
For example, in order to protect the environment and improve fuel consumption of automobiles, there has been proposed an automobile designed to automatically stop the engine when the automobile stops, for example, so as to wait for a traffic light to change.
However, an ordinary car air conditioner has a problem in that, when an engine of an automobile in which the air conditioner is mounted is stopped, a compressor driven by the engine stops, and supply of refrigerant (medium for carrying cool) to an evaporator stops, whereby the cooling capacity of the air conditioner sharply drops.
One conceivable measure for solving such a problem is imparting a cool storage function to the evaporator, to thereby enable cooling of a vehicle compartment by releasing the cool stored in the evaporator, when the compressor stops as a result of stoppage of the engine.
Such an evaporator with a cool storage function has been proposed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (kokai) No. 2011-12947). In the proposed evaporator, a plurality of flat refrigerant flow tubes (heat exchange tubes) which extend in the vertical direction and whose width direction coincides with an air-passing direction are disposed in parallel such that they are spaced from one another. The evaporator has air-passing clearances each formed between refrigerant flow tubes located adjacent to each other. Cool storage material containers filled with a cool storage material are disposed in some air-passing clearances, and outer fins are disposed in the remaining air-passing clearances. Each cool storage material container is formed by joining together peripheral edge portions of two metal plates, and a cool storage material is charged into a cool storage material accommodation space provided between the two metal plates.
Although not clearly shown in the above-mentioned publication, a cool storage material charging inlet is formed in each cool storage material container so as to charge the cool storage material into the cool storage material container. After the cool storage material is charged into the cool storage material accommodation space through the cool storage material charging inlet, the cool storage material charging inlet must be closed.
Incidentally, in the case of the evaporator with a cool storage function disclosed in the above-mentioned publication, a conceivable simple way of forming the cool storage material charging inlet on each cool storage material container is providing an outward projecting semi-cylindrical portion at the peripheral edge of each metal plate, providing outward flanges along opposite side edges of the semi-cylindrical portion of each metal plate, and joining together the corresponding outward flanges of the semi-cylindrical portions of the two metal plates. Also, a conceivable simple way of closing such a cool storage material charging inlet is press-fitting a cylindrical columnar plug into the cool storage material charging inlet after charging of the cool storage material.
In general, the two metal plates which constitute the above-described thermal storage material container are manufactured by performing press work on a blank metal plate through use of two dies having shapes corresponding to the final shape of the metal plates. In this case, round connection portions are unavoidably formed between the inner circumferential surface of each semi-cylindrical portion and the outward flanges formed along the opposite side edges of the semi-cylindrical portion. Accordingly, when the two metal plates are joined together, recesses are formed on the inner circumferential surface of the cylindrical thermal storage material charging inlet formed by the semi-cylindrical portions of the metal plates. As a result, merely press-fitting a cylindrical columnar plug into the thermal storage material charging inlet may cause leakage of the thermal storage material.